China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

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chola
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by chola »

^^* Karan ji, all I can say is I hope you are right.

But I come from the world of business. I can say with fairly good certainty that the PRC did not become the world’s number one trading nation with hapzard policies through either their government or their industries. Even their weaknesses, like large aircraft and aircraft engines, are being addressed with a flood of programs.

That said, again I do hope you are right and I can’t see things because I have gone native while following their military.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Karan M »

chola wrote:^^* Karan ji, all I can say is I hope you are right.

But I come from the world of business.
I can say with fairly good certainty that the PRC did not become the world’s number one trading nation with hapzard policies through either their government or their industries. Even their weaknesses, like large aircraft and aircraft engines, are being addressed with a flood of programs.
Let me repeat this - there is nothing unique about what the PRC has done or will be doing. It is a mix of hard nosed real-politik and taking advantage of power differentials (US seeking a counterweight to Russia), industriousness (becoming the world's manufacturer) and brazen rule breaking (IP rip off's, native sourcing with heavy controls and concessions).

Many of these policies ARE haphazard. https://www.businessinsider.in/12-eerie ... 083038.cms
Why did this occur? Because one way for local leadership to curry favor with the central party officials was to show massive GDP growth as it was a KPI for them to show success on. Similarly, giving loans to local business was another KPI for bank guys. And so it went.
In short, for a mix of haphazard reasons (empire building, improper policies), China has invested trillions in wasteful capital allocation.

The scale of all this is very impressive though. When people visit PRC, they come back with stories of awe inspiring growth, this, that- but underneath all that, vast hordes of PRC citizens are resorting to emigrating en masse & others do this (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/worl ... aigou.html) - does this sound like a country with a truly free market and access to world class local products?

Now, let me be equally honest. When you hit 10 balls, and 4 balls are duds, and six go out of the park, you are still doing ok. Swinging away. What happens when that method stops working when the opportunities to swing away aren't there? This is what I mean is wasteful profligacy.

When China was doing all this, India was literally imploding, Central Govt wise, with a host of corrupt leaders or figureheads running the show, while there was a brief glimmer of hope under NDA1.

In short, India has grown in a chaotic mess despite decades of GOI mismanagement & haphazard investment in basic infrastructure. Yet, Indian companies thrive. The current Govt is even cutting off access to the other famous Indian (but worldwide) phenomenon of crony industrialists.

What do you do in PRC, when the crony industrialist happens to be a party member & also even better, the state owns the firm?

My point is the entire overinvestment in fixed assets, the dependence on literally a smorgasbord of FDI and foreign tech to drive the economy, gave PRC a vast amount of economic leverage to do whatever it wanted.

And I suspect, it rather went to their head. Hence this wasteful belief in making a 100 ships, a dozen submarines, this, that - without a recourse to cost effectiveness.

Its all very American & Soviet Unionish to be honest.

The Americans though, do manage to sell enough of their trillion dollar jet programs to allies & recoup the costs of the program.

Even they have sense enough not to run F-35, F-36 and F-99 programs altogether.

In China each factory is busy churning out planes without any economic rationale!

This is very similar to the empty cities conundrum.

You have a bunch of factories, with ambitious managers all of whom have to show progress. And show it they do, by wastefully using up loans again taken from state owned banks and their financing.

Deng Xiao Ping was all about the Teddy Roosevelt doctrine, speak softly and carry a big stick. The current PRC Govt is all about overactive macho projection of power. And alliances are being formed.

This also means the easy flow of foreign tech is being stopped. I welcome this, as I welcome an assertive PRC claiming the Japanese emperor's castle was some Ming emperor's crib and hence its all Chinese.

I just hope even as India rationalizes its leadership and economy, we get over our import fixation BUT don't do a china in that we produce a 100000 ripoffs of foreign goods and call it success.

I welcome an ATAGs by DRDO, Bharat Forge & L&T, I don't actually welcome a 130mm M-46 clone made with local metallurgy and claimed to be Indian, given some local name & then a million of them are made at a time, when the rest of the world is moving to lighter weapons or better ones.
That said, again I do hope you are right and I can’t see things because I have gone native while following their military.
Its hard not to be impressed by seeing their zillion stories of local success.

But each time they throw a fit when small ROC buys a so called upgrade for their 4 gen fighter, to my mind, it shows the reality.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by DavidD »

I think you need to give some examples of Chinese factories churning out planes without economic rationale. The only duplicate capabilities being built have significant export support, e.g. the JL-9 and JL-10, or the UAVs, just as you described with the American MIC. There are other duplicate projects, but none of them are being built without funding from the market, which is selecting the most capable to survive.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Philip »

V.recently I was talking to a 3* former Vice-Chief.He gave as an example the rationale behind the Sov/Ru philosophy citing the MIG-21 as an example.Built in such large qtys. to outnumber the enemy and served us very well.He said in combat, say a 2 vs 4 situ, 2 MIGs could be lost to the enemy but the 2 remaining MIGs would finish off the 2 enemy aircraft.Superiority in numbers would prove decisive.Unless the IAF closes the numbers gap with the Sino-Pak air threat, which has been increasing every year, we will be v.hard put to manage in a crisis involving both our mortal enemies.I think it was also not too long ago that an IAF officer also expressed his fears about such an eventuality.The Chinese hope that this safety in numbers will allow them the luxury of sacrificing as many as needed to defeat the enemy.

The cheapest option for us is ramping up LCA production and flooding the skies with them.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Rakesh »

First Djibouti ... now Pakistan port earmarked for a Chinese overseas naval base, sources say
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomac ... ed-chinese
The facility would be similar to one in operation in African nation, offering logistics and maintenance services to PLA Navy vessels.
chola
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by chola »

Dave! What does this say? New WS-10X, WS-15 or Russian S117 from the Su-35?

2022 is a new test vehicle? 2021 was the one that had the new WS-10 variant.

Image
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by DavidD »

The poem doesn't really provide any info besides saying that it's testing at the beginning of the year. It's supposed to be the second airframe with the new WS-10X engine.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Aditya_V »

X post from the other thread, Tuting incident resolved as per Army chief. The Chinese are pushing it will all neighbors, I hope their conflict with Vietnam, Philipines, Taiwan. India must strengthen itself so that they doseant become a victim of CPC need to show a victory. After US wars bankrupting them they are testing all their neighbors to see who is the weakest.

The Chinese can bring plenty of motivation and arms to first 1 or 2 wars they fight, after that they will loose their itchiness
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Philip »

New Chinese large DDGs to serve with their CBGs.
http://www.atimes.com/article/powerful- ... -carriers/
Powerful destroyers to protect China’s aircraft carriers
The weak underbelly of Chinese carriers will be guarded by these powerful, versatile destroyers
By ASIA TIMES STAFF JANUARY 8, 2018
Inadequate fighter planes aboard China’s 1980s-vintage Liaoning aircraft carrier, as well as on the country’s first domestically made carrier, can seriously limit the might of the fledging Chinese carrier strike groups.

That is why the People’s Liberation Army has gone to great lengths to develop and construct ace guided-missile destroyers to remedy the problem and turn PLA carriers into fortresses at sea.

While the homemade Type 002 carrier is set to stretch its legs in a maiden sea trial rumored for February or March, the second ship of the Type 055 destroyer family earmarked to escort the carrier is also taking shape in the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, and its drydock will soon be flooded for the first time, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reports.

Modular assembly for the third and fourth Type 055s has been revved up and construction of the second batch of four extra modified sea bases has been scheduled for the Shanghai facility as well as the Dalian Shipyard.

*(at least 8 planned)

China’s Most Powerfull Warship Launched Chinese Type 055 Class Guided Missile Destroyer (7)
A still from a China Central Television news program on the launch of the first Type 055 destroyer at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai. Photo: CCTV
Each carrier strike group will have two such multi-role monster destroyers, measuring 183 meters in length and 22 meters in width with a displacement of 13,500 tons at full load, which was last matched in Asia by warships launched by the Imperial Japanese Navy before 1945.

Armored with a total of 112 firepower units and vertical launch systems, the versatile destroyer has air-defense, anti-missile, anti-ship and anti-submarine capabilities, as well as sea-land warfare, thanks to the surface-to-air HQ-9B and HQ-10 missiles, YJ-18A anti-ship and land-attack missiles, and the newly developed Yu-8 anti-submarine missiles that will form the backbone of the Type 055’s well-rounded assault capabilities.

It can also work in concert with Type 052C/D destroyers, the 093B nuclear submarine and 054B frigate as a command ship, Global Times reported, quoting a PLA admiral.


Type 055 destroyers could potentially rival the US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the first built around the Aegis Combat System, and the only US destroyers in service until the Zumwalt-class became active in 2016.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Kartik »

CAIG Z-18 transport helo looks to have entered service with PLAGF

Image
The Changhe Aircraft Industries Group (CAIG) Z-18A transport helicopter has entered service with the People’s Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF), a news report by the state-owned broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) has suggested.

The network released video footage on 2 January showing the platform being operated by a PLA Army Aviation unit during military exercises in China’s western Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region: a likely indication that it has entered service.

The Z-18A is based on the commercial three-engine Avicopter AC313 multirole medium-lift transport helicopter developed by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). First seen in December 2014 in Chinese state media, the platform is reported to have undergone high-altitude tests on the Tibetan Plateau in January 2015.

The army-specific Z-18A could replace the PLAGF’s ageing S-70C-2 and/or Z-8B platforms and provide the force with an enhanced high-altitude medium-lift capability.

Naval variants of the Z-18 include the Z-18J airborne early warning and the Z-18F anti-submarine warfare helicopters. The Z-18A differs from the naval versions in that it has an extended nose with a terrain-following radar and an electro-optical system.

However, it uses the same three WZ6C turboshaft engine configuration, lightweight hull design, and ‘glass’ cockpit as the naval versions. It has a maximum take-off weight of about 13 tons, can carry about 27 fully armed troops, has a range of up to 1,000 km, and features an aft-ramp for offloading small vehicles.

The latest development comes amid media reports that the PLAGF is setting up new air assault brigades to consolidate army aviation helicopter units with lightly armed but mechanised air assault infantry battalions.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Philip »

Pl ck the link to see the huge mil. infrastructure built by theChins at the reef.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01 ... l-islands/
China triggers new storm over military build-up on artificial islands
Images broadcast on CCTV showed that Beijing has intensified its construction of military instillation CREDIT: CCTV

Neil Connor, beijing
9 JANUARY 2018 • 5:57PM

China has triggered diplomatic protests after images broadcast on state television appeared to show it had reneged on a promise not to militarise artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea.

China has caused alarm among its neighbours and in Washington by erecting military installations on what were previously reefs and partially-submerged islets in the strategically-important waters.

Delfin Lorenzana, Philippine defence secretary, said that Beijing had agreed “some time ago” that it was “not going to militarise those reclaimed islands".

However, newly-broadcast images suggest that Beijing has intensified its construction of bunkers, aircraft hangers and barracks for troops in the contested region.

“If it is true and we can prove that they have been putting soldiers and even weapons systems, that will be a violation of what they said,” added Mr Lorenzana.

A satellite image of Fiery Cross Reef in Spratly island chain in the South China Sea, annotated by the source to show areas where China has conducted construction work above ground during 2017 CREDIT: CSIS ASIA MARITIME TRANSPARENCY INITIATIVE/DIGITALGLOBE
The defence secretary said the protest would be made through the foreign ministry.

China said the construction was intended to aid peace in the region, as well as maritime safety and disaster prevention.

Foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing in Beijing: “Of course, China also needs to construct necessary defence equipment for its territory. The relevant equipment is not directed at any particular country."

The spat erupted after relations between Beijing and Manilla have improved in recent months, as President Rodrigo Duterte seeks to entice Chinese investment.

Military units were seen training on the islands in the footage CREDIT: CCTV
Mr Lorenzana made his remarks after images published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington last month showed China had been busy building new infrastructure in the contested region during 2017 – when much of the world was focused on North Korea.

Fiery Cross Reef appeared to have witnessed the most construction, the think tank said, with work being carried out on buildings covering 27 acres, or about 110,000 square metres.

China's neighbours have grown increasingly concerned over the militarisation
Shortly before New Year, Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) aired footage of the reef which showed a group of soldiers patrolling, along with military helicopters and vessels.

CCTV also screened aerial images of the new island which showed a 3,000-metre runway that observers have long believed is capable of allowing any of China's military aircraft to land.

China lays claim to almost all of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion (£3.8 trillion) of trade passes every year.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan all have rival claims.

Additional reporting by Christine Wei
Austin
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Austin »

chola
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by chola »

^^^ @ Austin, Kartik on the new Z-18.

They got a deep license of the Super Frelon in the 1980s and are still developing variants off of it.

Image

Every helo on that chini carrier is a variant of a French product patent.

From the Super Frelon:
Z-8JH SAR
Z-18 VIP
Z-18F ASW
Z-18J AEW

From the Dauphin:
Z-9S SAR
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Aditya_V »

This was my post on 30 December 2018 on Neutering the CHinese Thread, yesterday TOI answers the Question
Aditya_V wrote:There is no road near Bishing, did the Bulldozers float on the Bramhaputra a.k.a siang a.ka Yarlung Zangbo or did they try to cut down forests to try and build a new road in the area?
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cit ... 439900.cms
The road that was built runs alongside the eastern bank of the blackened waters of the Siang river which flows as Yarlung Tsangpo from Tibet. While the Chinese have a path to enter right through the international border, Bishing does not have a motorable road of its own connecting it to the rest of the Indian territory. Villagers have to walk almost 4 km and then take a bridge across Siang by a bridge to reach Geling, which is the point where the motorable road ends.
So it seems Chinese are literally building a road on the Banks of Yarlung Zangbo/Siang/ Brahmaputra, this Road construction was probably related to the pollution found int he river last November.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by chola »

^^^ Since the 1998 Su-27SK license, they have:
1) J-11B
2) J-11BS (twin seat)
3) J-11BH (naval)
4) J-11BHS (naval twin seat)
5) J-11D
6) J-15 (STOBAR carrier, canards)
7) J-15S (twin seater STOBAR)
8 ) J-15T (CATOBAR carrier)
9) J-15D (EW)
10) J-16 (MKK fighter-bomber ripoff)
11) J-17? (TBA, Su-35 ripoff)

Since our first TOT of the base Su-30MK in 1997, we were allowed to build exactly one variety:
1) Su-30MKI

We had a far better platform in the MK/MKI than the Su-27SK. But can only build that platform while the chinis run riot putting their own engines, mijjiles, avionics, tailhooks, canards and whatever other chit they can think of on their flankers.
chola
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by chola »

And so it begins.

Image
Heavy smoke from their new carrier. Looks like engine testing has begun.

Image
A new accommodation/barracks ship (89) of the Xiake class is berthed next to the Type 001A. This is used to expose large numbers of PLAN personel to the carrier during sea trials which are now imminent.


Image
The Xiake class is a bit of a marvel in its own right — 23K tons that can accomodate up to 2500 men for weeks away from port. A modernized troopship that acts as a hotel at sea for officers and men while wringing out an new carrier. They are dead serious about their carrier program because the first Xiake was built for the Liaoning and now a brand new second one for the Type 001A.

We don’t have an equivalent to this cruise ship for a generation of sailors born as spoiled single children.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Austin »

Chinese modular rocket launcher systems SR5 in Algeria

chola
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by chola »

More on the Xiake class “accommodation” ship. Sounds pretty soft and decadent to me. It seems they are building one per carrier.

But interesting point on such ships replacing/supplementing oversea bases. They’ve put a lot of thought into the whole carrier thing. Not only 13K ton cruisers as escorts for the CBGs but 23K ton military luxury liners as well.

http://www.ecns.cn/m/military/2018/01-17/288703.shtml
China's 2nd barracks ship appears in Dalian
2018-01-17 09:50 China Military Online Editor: Li Yan

China's 2nd homegrown barracks ship has arrived in Dalian city of northeastern China's Liaoning Province to meet with China's 2nd aircraft carrier, according to recent reports.

As a unique type of warship in the aircraft carrier vessels battle groups (CVBG) of the PLA Navy, the ship has very advanced living support facilities including plastic runway, basketball court, gym, arena, Internet cafe and supermarket.

The ship is mainly used for accommodation for crew members, pilots, aviation crews and engineering and technical personnel during sea trial periods. It is a military quasi-luxury cruise ship.

The performance of the new barracks ship is similar to that of ship XuXiake (Hull 88), a China's first homegrown barracks ship commissioned in 2011.

...

The new barracks ship is designed to support 2,500 people for 30 days at sea before needing resupply.

It's known to all that its many global bases have helped the U.S. to have the most powerful aircraft carrier force in the world. The U.S. aircraft carriers can have supplies from the bases and the crews can also have rest periods on land during far sea training or combat.

China lacks overseas support bases and therefore constructing barracks ships is one of the solutions. Although a barracks ship cannot completely replace overseas base, it can reduce the aircraft carrier's requirements for land bases.

The combat effectiveness and cost-effectiveness ratio of the entire aircraft carrier battle groups can be enhanced through a combination of barracks ship and land base rotation. After all, the maintenance cost of an overseas base is far greater than that of a barracks ship.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Singha »

ingenious idea.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by hnair »

A full complement of hard-to train crew in CV operations go on a mens-only "Atlantis Events" cruise on a lightly defended ship during hostilities. What can go wrong? :lol:

CMC's forces main intention nowadays seems to be to give its own public, what in martial arts would be called ,"weapons form demo", not a no-holds bar cage match with dried blood on the ceiling. Khan's decline is largely mitigated due to such buffoonery

The small font news on Hambantota airport being snapped up by India (khan/frenchies elsewhere around Indo-Pac rim) is probably the reason why they have to do all this, instead of spreading the risks via multiple commercial flights to a safe mustering point
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by hnair »

A constantly repeated line of pro-chinese posters here is the scenario of "100s of cheap chinese drones overwhelming <insert an Indian system, including LCA>"

Here are some interesting cheap ways to deal with cheap drones, including two of my favorites, airburst rounds and EW disruption of datalinks. As the deadpan senior gent explains helpfully, EW "to disrupt nav and link, to hold (the UAV) still, for the kinetic kill to be effective" :rotfl: Of course, same as a tank APS, those dense flashing gobs of shrap in the air means no infantry anywhere close by.

Xposting from International aviation thread (Thanks, brar_w, very interesting )
brar_w wrote:This is a rapidly progressing development and should be useful against the large "cheap UAS" that can be a nuisance to swat own with expensive interceptors. DARPA's MF is looking to add full up seekers on 30 mm and 40 mm rounds and the two development programs (Lockheed and Raytheon) should demo their products by 2021-2022 or so. Orbital ATKs command guided rounds which they are developing on their own will likely be ready ahead of that as the US Army is looking to buy 10-20 modified Strykers for immediate deployment later this year (specifically in the C-UAS configuration).

A Stinger costs roughly $40,000. The proximity fuse variant likely a bit more. If you can get the cost of a kill using the new command guided round down to a 10 th of that using you are moving in the right direction.

Orbital ATK progresses new medium calibre munition development


Orbital ATK is developing a range of new advanced medium-calibre ammunition variants for use with its 30/40 mm calibre MK44 XM813 and 30 mm calibre lightweight XM914 Bushmaster Chain Guns. The new ammunition types – command-guided, proximity fuze, and air burst – are intended to deliver enhanced capabilities for a wide range of land and air combat platforms.

Development of the 30×173 mm command-guided round leverages technologies evolved by Orbital ATK for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) programme.

The EXACTO effort has resulted in a guided .50 calibre round – equipped with real-time optical sensors and aero-actuation controls – that improves sniping performance in long-range, day/night engagements. The EXACTO system combines a manoeuvrable bullet with a complementary laser designator-equipped fire control system (FCS) to compensate for weather, wind, target movement, and other factors that can reduce accuracy.

The sniper uses the laser designator to determine and track the target. Once fired, actuators inside the bullet – which can correct its movement up to 30 times per second in flight – receive data from the optical sensor to guide it to the target. For the new 30×173 mm guided round, the target is locked with a radar sensor, while a networked FCS delivers updated course correction and target information via a data-link to an unspecified command guidance sensor located in the back of the munition.

“It’s a one shot, one kill capability in one round,” Tim Strusz, Director Business Development, Precision Weapons at Orbital ATK told Jane’s .

“In terms of operational cost effectiveness, the round pays for itself with a single shot,” he added.

Strusz said that Orbital ATK will demonstrate the command guidance technology in a larger calibre round in December; the 30 mm guided round will undergo extensive testing during 2018, with firing trials of an all-up round scheduled to follow thereafter.


In parallel, the company is also developing a proximity fuzed 30×113 mm round for the M230LF Chain Gun. The round will provide the weapon with a next-generation air bursting solution. This effort will be integrated into the M230LF kinetic kill capability – which, combined with the electronic attack capability of the Blighter AUDS counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS), was demonstrated as an integration on an US Army Stryker 8×8 infantry carrier vehicle at White Sands range in New Mexico in September.

Orbital ATK will conduct a C-UAS demonstration in December 2017 with an all-up round, while qualification of the round is expected in 2018.

Development, integration, and qualification of both the guidance and proximity fuze technologies are supported through internal research and development (IRAD) funding. Strusz said that the development roadmap for the 30×113 mm round will lead to the integration of both technologies in a single round, significantly enhancing the M230LF/AUDS system in the C-UAS role while delivering enhanced stand-off survivability.

He added that both technologies will also be migrated to Orbital ATK 40 mm munitions for use with the XM813 Bushmaster Chain Gun. Beyond these current initiatives, ATK Orbital is also considering an individual technology insertion of the command guidance solution to the 30×113 mm round to augment its one-shot kinetic kill capability.

Separately, is expecting internal qualification of its 30×173 mm MK310 (MOD 1) Programmable Air Bursting Munition (PABM) round by the end of 2017. Using IRAD funding, the company has conducted a series of successful tests and internal demonstrations of its MK44 cannon with PABM ammunition to defeat UAS platforms in a tactical scenario.

The company has also delivered PABM rounds to the US Army for qualification on the upgraded 2nd Cavalry Regiment Stryker vehicles, which are equipped with the Kongsberg Protector MCT30 medium calibre turret and the Orbital ATK XM813 Bushmaster cannon. The 2nd Cavalry is being equipped with PABM-capable cannons to take advantage of the new ammunition.

Orbital ATK Armament Systems Division is also qualifying a family of 40 mm ammunition including Target Practice-Tracer (TP-T), High Explosive Incendiary-Tracer (HEI-T), Armour Piercing, Fin Stabilised, Discarding Sabot-Tracer (APFSDS-T), and PABM for its MK44/XM813 Bushmaster Chain Gun. This effort is expected to be completed by the first quarter 2018, an Orbital ATK spokesperson told Jane’s , adding that qualification is being conducted internally to NATO standard. Technological insertions of these advanced ammunition types are intended to rapidly introduce advanced capabilities to existing land, air, and sea-based weapons platforms. For example, technological breakthroughs such as command guided munitions will bring new capability to the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter and AC-130 gunship.

Programmable air bursting munitions and proximity rounds will increase the kinetic kill capability to counter UAS while ground combat vehicles will benefit through the greater effects these new rounds provide against troops in defilade as well as lightly protected structures and soft-skinned vehicles.

While videos or pictures of the command guided round which was due to be tested last month have yet to emerge, Jane's was provided with a video of the 30 mm Programmable Air Bursting Munition (PABM) which has been going through testing against Class I Unmanned systems for a few months now:



There are two Strker configurations for the C-UAS role, one pictured below with the Liteye system comprising of an Electro-Optical system, a Radar, and an Electronic Warfare disruptor along with the 30 mm cannon which is networked with the Liteye mission system.

Image


The second Stryker configuration has the gun, an Electronic Warfare and Surveillance system and the High Energy Laser and its mission systems. This too as I have mentioned in the past shot down dozens of class-1 and 2 UASs. At the moment this has a 5 kW HEL with plans to up this to 10 kW and then eventually 50kW in the 2020s once the Syrker power generation and electrical architecture is changed..



The Baseline Stryker upgraded with the new 30 mm Bushmaster is now in service in Europe with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment.

https://www.armytimes.com/news/2017/12/ ... in-europe/
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by brar_w »

Hnair, the eventual goal is leading to seeker/guidance equipped guided medium caliber rounds. Technology is at this moment at a low readiness level and there are likely quite a few challenges but its what is coming a few years down the road. Although Orbital ATK did not get down-selected by DARPA, it does seem that their Command Guided 30 mm rounds are more mature and a bridge to the eventual goal of the MAD FIRES program. Full up command guided round testing is claimed to begin in early 2018 as an internal project so that will be a very interesting thing to follow if they provide videos of them which they usually do for internal projects.

Multi-Azimuth Defense Fast Intercept Round Engagement System (MAD-FIRES)
Attacks by unmanned vehicles, missiles, small planes, fast in-shore attack craft and other platforms pose a perennial, evolving and potentially lethal threat to ships and other maritime vessels. The escalating risks posed by these ever-morphing threats demand that vessels have access to defensive capabilities at the leading edge of air and surface combat technologies. In particular, current close-range gun systems would greatly benefit from an ability to engage multiple and diverse targets coming from a range of directions and do so rapidly and with high precision.

To help meet these needs and greatly enhance maritime vessels’ survivability in contested environments, DARPA has created the Multi-Azimuth Defense—Fast Intercept Round Engagement System (MAD-FIRES) program. The goal of the program is to design and develop technologies associated with a medium-caliber guided projectile that would combine the guidance, precision and accuracy generally afforded by missiles with the speed, rapid-fire capability and large ammunition capacity afforded by bullets.

MAD-FIRES aims to advance the state-of-the-art in defensive gun systems by creating a new, low-cost technological foundation for guided, gun-launched projectiles. Specifically, MAD-FIRES aims to incorporate enhanced ammunition rounds able to alter their flight path in real time to stay on target, and a capacity to continuously target, track and engage multiple fast-approaching targets simultaneously and re-engage any targets that survive initial engagement.

Envisioned benefits of MAD-FIRES for future systems include:

Improved real-time defense against evolving air and surface combat threats, facilitated by:
Extreme precision
An ability to defend against greater numbers of simultaneous and diverse attacks
Decreased per-engagement costs by a factor of 10 or more
Potential future applicability to air and ground platforms
Meanwhile, DARPA was expected to complete the designs of the two prototypes (one made by Lockheed and another by Raytheon) by the end of last year. They too should begin some sort of preliminary testing this year.

From their official program description:
The Multi-Azimuth Defense Fast Intercept Round Engagement (MAD-FIRES) program seeks to develop a point defense system against today's most stressing threats by developing a highly maneuverable, medium caliber, guided projectile, fire sequencing and control system capable of neutralizing large threat raids of high speed, highly maneuverable targets. Leveraging recent advancements in gun hardening, miniaturization of guided munition components, and long range sensors, MAD-FIRES will advance fire control technologies, medium caliber gun technologies, and guided projectile technologies enabling the multiple, simultaneous target kinetic engagement mission at greatly reduced costs. MAD-FIRES seeks to achieve lethality overmatch through accuracy rather than size, thus expanding the role of smaller combat platforms into missions where they have been traditionally outgunned.

MAD-FIRES, sized as a medium caliber system, enhances flexibility for installment as a new system and as an upgrade to existing gun systems with applications to various domain platforms across a multitude of missions to include: ship self-defense, precision air to ground combat, precision ground to ground combat, counter unmanned air vehicles (C- UAV), and counter rocket and artillery and mortar (C-RAM).

FY 2016 Accomplishments:
- Determined Point of Departure (POD) designs.
- Completed end-to-end modeling and simulation of POD designs.
- Began risk reduction tests and prototyping.
- Updated models and simulations as designs were modified.
- Conducted risk reduction subsystem tests to verify gun hardening and performance.
- Performed wind tunnel tests to validate aerodynamic models and air gun test to verify gun-launch.

FY 2017 Plans:
- Update models and simulations of select designs.
- Complete preliminary prototype design.
- Mature electronics packaging through design and subsystem validation.
- Conduct gun launch and fire solid rocket motors to validate projectile kinematic performance. - Perform initial controlled projectile flight tests to assess projectile maneuver performance.

FY 2018 Plans:
- Finalize designs for major subcomponents.
- Demonstrate gun survivability for all up projectile.
- Conduct ballistic and controlled test vehicle flights.
- Apply lessons learned from flight tests to maturing design.
Last edited by brar_w on 17 Jan 2018 17:25, edited 1 time in total.
hnair
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by hnair »

True, it does not sound ready for operations. But then so are those swarms we are asked to shiver at. Currently those DJI Phantom class gets waved around here as the tip-of-iceberg kind of threat. Even Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs was about to shoot one down with minimal attire

What is telling, to me, is that the only one who has shown a high-density co-ordinated swarm is Intel, with its adorable drones in front of Bellagio and Disney's electric parades. But even that swarm needs a datalink to the central spatial controller, which IIRC, controls individual drones. Cut that link and the drones just hover in place till battery runs out. It is not like, a drone in such a situation is yet sentient and thinking "ok, I need to move x, y and z coordinates relative to my next six or eight team-mates", as some posters want us to believe, China has.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Singha »

>>A full complement of hard-to train crew in CV operations go on a mens-only "Atlantis Events" cruise on a lightly defended ship during hostilities

well the idea is to dominate the show in the 99% peacetime and this permits longer operational deployments like 6 months to the gulf of aden, gwader of the CBG than having to scurry back after 3 months when the crew is tired of it, and it permits training more people for future carriers. these cruise ships can also carry spare crews for the DDG/FFG/oilers/subs of the task force in easy comfort and have a long loitering

they will vanish from the scene in a real war and hence are not a liability.

drone swarms with a programmed set of GPS waypoints and a final target point like part of airbase or vital structure is actually easier to do than maintain a continuous reaper type uplink. they are certainly going to happen. GPS can be jammed i suppose but directional antennas pointing up may help mitigate.

the Russis were on hair trigger alert at hymenium with everything from S400 down to pantsyrs and ZSUs and EW systems all warmed up. not all vital targets can be defended on such a scale.....there are 100 vital areas in NCR alone. any strike is a success for a jihadi.

the IRA managed to outthink scotland yard and land a mortar in the garden of 10 downing, via this van rig
Image
nam
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by nam »

Maintaining two set of 2500 people for 6 months on sea, means a large supply footprint. They need to feed for 6 months!

So they cannot be very far from a supply source/base.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by brar_w »

hnair wrote:True, it does not sound ready for operations. But then so are those swarms we are asked to shiver at. Currently those DJI Phantom class gets waved around here as the tip-of-iceberg kind of threat. Even Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs was about to shoot one down with minimal attire

What is telling, to me, is that the only one who has shown a high-density co-ordinated swarm is Intel, with its adorable drones in front of Bellagio and Disney's electric parades. But even that swarm needs a datalink to the central spatial controller, which IIRC, controls individual drones. Cut that link and the drones just hover in place till battery runs out. It is not like, a drone in such a situation is yet sentient and thinking "ok, I need to move x, y and z coordinates relative to my next six or eight team-mates", as some posters want us to believe, China has.
The Stryker solution with the PABM round and the EW/EO suite is actually ready. the components are actually deployed separately. The cannon is now deployed on the vehicle in Europe while the EW/EO and accompanying RF sensor is now even forward deployed with US troops in Iraq and Syria (on an FMTV). The objective is to put this on a Stryker much like the demo vehicle and have 10-12 of these systems forward deployed by the end of 2018. I think the only decision is which of the competing solutions to choose. Orbital's Command Guided Rounds will probably not show up till 2020ish while MAD FIRES is likely a 2023-2025 capability unless there is a rush to bring it into service due to an immediate need. But it is out there and much like most things in military tech there are counter technologies for most challenges. The biggest thing with cheap drones, and swarms is the element of surprise both at the tactical level (first time they show up on the battlefield) and at the MilTech level when planners finally take notice and begin to focus their efforts on counter technologies. Both of these things are now happening around the world. There is still tremendous capability in swarms but those will focus on the swarming behavior and autonomy using sophisticated systems, missiles and even glide munitions NOT cheap DIY Drones.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by chola »

>>A full complement of hard-to train crew in CV operations go on a mens-only "Atlantis Events" cruise on a lightly defended ship during hostilities

well the idea is to dominate the show in the 99% peacetime and this permits longer operational deployments like 6 months to the gulf of aden, gwader of the CBG than having to scurry back after 3 months when the crew is tired of it, and it permits training more people for future carriers. these cruise ships can also carry spare crews for the DDG/FFG/oilers/subs of the task force in easy comfort and have a long loitering
Exactly, Singha ji.

IMHO, Cheen does things in a mercantile fashion that is geared towards the 99% chance that a military spends any given length of time in peace over the 1% chance of war. The chances of two major powers engaging each other in war since WW2 is even lower. And of two nuclear powers? Practically nil.

The naval luxury liners are a peacetime play to crew a large and far reaching projection force that is meant to impose jurisdiction in the gray zone by weight of numbers not by fighting. So unless the opponent escalates to war, their strategy is inevitably successful because they have an a MIC unmatched by anyone except Unkil backing them up. So the proper counter strategy is throw their plan off by actually STARTING a war with them. That would catch their luxury cruise liners and their half-trained crews in the middle of a real war before they know it.

As far as the drone swarms, Hnair ji, they are a complete waste of time (at this moment anyways) because the most disruptive drone story from Cheen is its sales of hundreds of traditional armed UAVs to the Middle East. Soon every damned muzzie tinpot around us will have Predator and Reaper rip-offs killing people willy-nilly. Including TSP.



http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... rone-24054

This chit is already happening before our eyes why even bother worrying about drone swarms.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Singha »

Indian Defence

@IndianDefenceRA
2h2 hours ago
More
Russia starts to delivery S-400s to China
brar_w
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by brar_w »

chola wrote:As far as the drone swarms, Hnair ji, they are a complete waste of time (at this moment anyways) because the most disruptive drone story from Cheen is its sales of hundreds of traditional armed UAVs to the Middle East. Soon every damned muzzie tinpot around us will have Predator and Reaper rip-offs killing people willy-nilly. Including TSP.

There is a difference b/w various drones and the concept of drone swarms in general. The problems with shooting down drones come when there are really cheap drones that can overwhelm your air-defenses. Not only are they hard to shoot down technically by traditional means (due to their small and slow nature) In wartime you obviously do not look at cost and will use the best option, however war-planners have to right size their inventory to the threat and you cant be buying million dollar missiles to shoot down sub $10,000 drones. When you begin to get into the Predator / Reaper class size then these are no longer cheap/disposable, small COTS based solutions and you can use traditional air defenses to shoot them down.

Another thing that is interesting about these drones proliferating is the back end investment that is required to make full use of these drones by integrating them into each element of your tactics and procedures. It takes a lot of bandwidth to move around huge volumes of data to be able to use small, medium and large sized drones for each element of your combat operations and at each mission. The US Joint Forces demands in Iraq during OIF basically painted a picture of a network (data links and SATCOM) saturation forcing the USAF to move to a future CDL which is looking for a 100 Gb/second (mmW) framework to support future small-large drone full motion video support needs. How will a TSP (forget lesser capable operators) protect the integrity of its data links and SATCOMS when a near peer competitor is capable of disrupting them? You need fairly strong Electronic Warfare, and Cyber resilience to make them work against resistance on top of having the bandwidth to support them at scale. Otherwise they will remain niche players capable of only some roles.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Prasad »

Drone swarms are the interlinked supersonic ashms threat of the 21st century. Bvr-wvr-guns/ciws type distinction can be made. So unless you're thinking of a backpaki group launching 20 drones at an airbase, your best bet will be to target launch platforms at a distance.
A salvo of missiles launched from a bomber/fighter would be just as much a threat as drones. What else will deliver these drones?
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by durairaaj »

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/01/c ... rmany.html.

It seems China has achieved significant advancement in jet engine development.
From the article "Many Chinese researchers and engineers who had worked at GE, Pratt &Whitney and Rolls-Royce had returned to China and significantly increased the pace of jet engine development."
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Zynda »

^^They could be Chinese origin naturalized engineers. I don't think American born Chinese origin folks would be too keen on working in China. It is almost next to impossible for a foreign national to get employed in the above orgs due to ITAR & TSC clearance requirements.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by shiv »

Doklam latest - my take
https://youtu.be/y15iiyIbIus
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Mihir »

What range can these drone swarms operate at? 20 minutes of endurance isn't much. They might prove useful in attacking targets at or near the frontline, but anything deep in the interior would be out of reach, wouldn't it? Couple that with their limited payloads, and you see that they may not amount to much in terms of raw capability.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by chola »

My point is that sci-fi drone swarms are the least of our worries when the chinis are already selling traditional hunter-killers by the hundreds.

Right now, the TSP with a Reaper ripoff has a capability we don’t have.

http://www.janes.com/article/76911/wing ... ni-airbase

http://www.janes.com/article/76772/chin ... ays-report

These things are cheap (compared to a Predator/Reaper or any manned craft) and are everywhere in the Middle East from Iraq to Saudi Arabia already. A matter of time before we see them in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Ceylon. We have better get moving on Rustom II unless we splurge on insanely expensive armed Herons.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/india-to- ... 400m-deal/
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Philip »

Media reports today quote the Congress spokesman, Surjitwallah on the Doklam issue.He claims that 7 helipads have been built, large facilities for troops and (official spokesman) that two regiments , one perhaps camouflaged are in the area.Whatever the accuracy of the reports, taken along with Shiv's vclip showing the newly built infrastructure, the Chins are here to stay forever at Doklam and if Shiv's analysis is right , a grave threat to Bhutan.

China is intensely pressurising Bhutan to recognise it diplomatically, which would eventually be suicide for the kingdom as we've seen what it has accomished in Nepal, turning a Hindu kingdom into an anti-Indian bastion of China-loving Communists.
Last edited by Philip on 19 Jan 2018 10:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by srai »

^^^
The Chinese are offering these smaller nations a connection to their "one belt, one road" concept. They are building a lot of infrastructure in these poor countries to connect to their network. They are very efficient at it too from what I hear. They bring in their own people to do the road or other projects, and they do them really fast at a low-cost to the nations. Once connected, they flood these nations' markets with tons of their cheap Chinese products, including fake name brands. Overall, their policy is one of infrastructure development for keeping their people employed and opening up new markets to trade their wares. Eventually, they will also gain access for their military.
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Re: China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

Post by Prasad »

Actual warfighting aside, very interesting piece on the churning in the PLA leadership -
https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/xi-ji ... curiouser/
All told, since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, over 100 PLA general officers have reportedly been forcibly retired or placed under investigation. In another sign of the extensiveness of these probes, perhaps 90 percent of the PLA officers that attended last October’s 19th CCP Party Congress were first-time attendees. As long-time China leadership observer Cheng Li noted, this marks an unprecedented turnover in the top ranks of the PLA.
Locked